Freedom of religion is a centuries-old expression. In most cases freedom of religion does not exist.

Freedom of religion is not accepted by the Supreme Court of the USA, as seen in Sandra Day O’Connor’s rantthat the USA is a Christian nation (it is not). The Roman Catholic majority of justices side with their faith and rule in favor of Christianity. There is little interest in defending the rights of Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, free-thinkers and non believers. This is seen in the repeated demands for a god oath or affirmation to tell the truth. God oath’s are distinctly religious (Ide, Arthur Frederick (1988), Vows, Virgins, Oaths and Orgies. Arlington, TX: Liberal Arts Press). This has become the rallying cry for sectarian judges at all levels, from the traffic courts in Des Moines, Iowa, to petty courts in Louisiana and the nefarious local courts in Texas. Most courts or jurists. It is not enshrined in the nation, nor in separate states. At best freedom of religion is a buzzword. In reality freedom of religion is a fantasy that has enchained and enslaved the mentality and academic advance throughout the USA since its inception as American colonies.

From Maine to Georgia, the North American colonies were not founded as bastions of theological freedom or the right to disbelieve. What came from pulpits and stages of colonial churches was the same hot loathing of predatory pastors that existed in Europe, with special condemnation of Jews, “pagan” (i.e. Muslim) slaves, and those who did not express exaltation and conviction of the Christian perspective of males who saw in Christianity justification for gynephobia and misogyny, racism and radicalization of theology that still saw Jews as “killers of the Christ” and “naked savages” (American aboriginal Indians) who did not bow before raised bibles, and later were damned as sinners by Joseph Smith Jr–one of the greatest plagiarist and ignorant speakers in USA history.

Those who came to the shores of the Eastern coastline were greedy, self-serving, and self-loathing Puritans, Pilgrims, people in quest of gold and land, and who had little interest in a truly encompassing society freed from the fetters of religion. Instead, these colonists were determined to create a “New Salem” (Jerusalem) and bring about a theocracy led by theocrats–as with the Matthers, Willis, and other bible bleaters. The colonists had a narrow definition of what religion was. Their god had to be prayed to daily, Their god would appoint “ministers of the faith” who would lead congregations like a ram herding sheep into judgemental assemblies in vocal or silent prayer while calling out witches, warlocks, and disbelievers for execution as with the Salem Witch Trials. The colonial Christians chartered congregations that would give a non-biblical tenth of their possession and production to sustain the slovenly spokespersons of the community’s god.

Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony hanging Quakers

Plymouth colony (Massachusetts) was among the most intolerant colonies. In part this was due to its Puritan background. In part this was due to Plymouth colony’s mephistophelean misogyny of its leaders who were more prone to seduce young girls and a few boys but hushed it up under claims of clerical immunity while reading gynophobia plastered across the pages of what copyists claimed were the epistles (or letters) of a mythological Paul written by various hands from 200-1000 CE.

When any person would speak out in favor of a different form of worship, or for the rights of women to participate in a discussion of a biblical text or a pastor’s sermon (as was the case with Anne Hutchison), the heavy hand of hardened clerics came crashing down with excruciating éclat. Their denial of human and civil rights for women, people of color and existing LGBT people who were dispatched from the worldly life as “abominations” became routine (read my article on LGBT and Jewish people in colonial America).

Anne Hutchinson

Mistress Anne Hutchinson was chastised, defamed, libeled and slandered for her outspokenness and denunciation of those who would not let her speak or preach. Hutchinson cited bible verses to justify her reading and speaking with other women–and some men–in defiance of the male antagonists who would keep her quiet based on wrongful readings of the letters of “Paul”.

Anne Hutchinson was better read and more articulate about the scriptures that she interpreted and commented on far more accurately than the pretensions and modestly educated Puritan preachers who acted more like popes than presbyters within her ossified and odious community.

Born Anne Marbury (1591–1643), Hutchinson was a Puritan woman. She served as a spiritual adviser for many when not performing domestic chores and being an attentive mother of 15. Birth control was unheard, and the misinterpreted line in Genesis 9:7 was not an injunction to act like rabbits or guinea pigs/cuyes, but was an admonition to minister to others so that a group would find freedom in thought.

The controversial Anne Hutchinson was an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy. Antinomianism is the belief that under the gospel dispensation of grace, moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to obtain salvation. It was in part the teaching of Martin Luther (who had a far greater impact on English theology than did the strictness of Jean Calvin of Geneva), although he qualified his rejection of good works by writing that faith is: “a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever…Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire” (Luther, Martin. Vermischte Deutsche Schriften, Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 (Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp. 124-125. [EA 63:124-125]). It was Antinomianism, with its view that salvation was for the soul only and not the body, rejecting most of the Old Testament and responding to critics that it matched the debate of the Council of Jerusalem (c. 50 CE) that rejected the necessity of circumcision (Acts 15:5, 19-22, cp. Acts 10:9-16) that was on part of the Laws of Moses, that doomed early Puritanism to play a minor role in the devolution of faith in Massachusetts.

A charismatic and popular preacher who threatened Puritan pastors, Hutchinson who was expelled from her colony in 1637. She was walked to the border of Plymouth as her penalty for the crime of challenging the authority of the male ministers who minced words to justify good works that had nothing in common with the Reformation of John Knox, Martin Luther, John Calvin and other would-be reformers turned revolutionaries.

A woman who refused to be silent, Hutchinson exposed the subordination of women in the culture of colonial Massachusetts. Citing scripture Hutchinson spelling out articulate arguments against the reading of the most heated passages in the Epistles of Paul. The mother of 15 children rejected the staid sentence sourly secreted into the vastly plagiarized First Letter to the Church of Corinth. She noted that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 claimed, wrongly, that women were to be silent. Hutchinson called attention to the full passage as being a reference to the church, and not a permanent position in discussion of sermons or scripture solely against the preaching of women. Women, such as Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and Noadiah, were prophets in the Old Testament, and greeted as “sisters in the faith” in the New Testament (Romans 4:20), becoming judges, priests, and even bishops in the early Church.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 has traditionally been linked with 1 Timothy 2:8-15. This is the mark of an addition by a copyist, that modern theologians are only now beginning to understand. While there is no substantial evidence that the Plymouth pioneer knew of this, Hutchinson fought for the right of women to read and study scripture without the menacing mention of women being silent based on the idea that all people were like little children whom Jesus invited to visit him (Matthew 19:14). Even the Paul of the New Testament saluted women, as in the case of Phoebe (Romans 16:1–2) Priscilla, wife of Aquila (both being tent makers; Acts 18:2) and recognized as leaders in 1 Corinthians 16:19 and Romans 16:3.

What Hutchinson did not argue is the text itself. Such an education was forbidden women by men who were threatened by any thought of equality between the sexes. Only ennobled women, wealthy women, had any formal education, and then quietly in their homes. The transmogrification of equality is the leftover garbage of the establishment of Christianity as an official religion by the Emperor in the fourth century CE.

If Anne Hutchinson had an education in Biblical text and interpretation, she would have noted that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is a declarative statement and the passage does not match the rest of the text. Translation and interpretation have never been strong suits in theological studies from the ancient world to this day when school pretend to teach both sciences not only in the Third World but in most schools in the First World.

A more careful study of the questionable declarative verse would note that the writers of the Pauline epistle to the church at Corinth ignored the scripture’s declaration that women will prophesy (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17-18) and did so in the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:5). The persecutor of Christians including at Corinth, Saul of Tarsus (who later takes for himself the name of Paul that means “small”, “humble” and even a “limited gathering of scholars”. The name Paul is a family’s surname at the time of the first century CE. It is Roman in heritage and spelled Paulus or Paullus. Nowhere in the New Testament considered an Apostle except by Saul, himself. The name Paul had no Hebrew or ancient Greek equivalent. It is introduced in Biblical Greek. The man is a self-created legend, and the Bible says nothing about Paul’s death. Only in 2 Timothy 2, do we read Paul writing about anticipating his death.

1 Corinthians 14 and the silence of women

What is unique is the writers of the Epistles, especially the letters to the congregation (there was no church) is that they are filled with repetition and self-rejection. This is seen, dramatically, in the two verses 34 and 35. They are self-contradictory, with 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 being at best a gloss or marginalia eased into the text by a medieval monk.

The Paul of the New Testament permitted women to participate when properly adorned (1 Corinthians 11:2-16). 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 stands out in sermons of all Christian cults and creeds–and has no biblical foundation except for itself (as I tell my students, you cannot use one book to prove the validity and credibility of that same book). It is plagiarized from Old Testament lore that justifies the murders committed by Saul who was nothing more than a poor imitation of Joshua and Gideon who launched a Holocaust quit in keeping with that pushed by Adolf Hitler.

Gideon’s Holocaust of Semitic people in Palestine/Canaan

Few have had the courage of Hutchinson to strike back at the theological terrorists machinations and insipid insanity of the patriarchy that then and now controls Christianity. This patriarchy, using select sentences that were added to a book compiled and plagiarized from far older sources and passed off by those who would control others who were denied an education. It was submissively accepted by those who bowed before alleged superiors who threatened their lives, limbs and property in the stagnant claim of being intercessor between god and man (ignoring woman). Like ancient priests, Plymouth pastors prattled that they controlled all in the name of fear of a wrathful demon known as YHWH who unleashed holocaust after holocaust in the Torah and Book of Prophets (Old Testament) through the mass murderers Joshua and Gideon. The source from the beginning of the innovation and creation of Christianity claimed their authority from a deliberate misreading of Matthew 16:18-19.

The Bible has always been a sponge of blood, from Genesis through Revelation. Its pastors dined from burnt sacrifice and were given seats at the head of tables where they would invoke their deity to look upon food and heart with a jubilant spirit while the ecclesiastics ate first. The idea of a “burnt sacrifice” is Akkadian in origin, passing through the language of Syria. The Hebrew feminine noun qorban (plural qorbanot קָרְבֳּנוֹת) first occurs in the Hebrew Bible in Leviticus 1:2. It is found in 80 other passages is pronounced similarly in the Arabic language (Arabic kurban قربان). Women were allowed to participate in the sacrifices–a fact that male preachers ignored, claiming that women were to be “meek and mild like Jesus”.

There was nothing “meek and mild” (a phrase that applies only to the Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew 11:28-30. In the original Greek (πράος) meek means “in control” and “with great power that is under control”. It defines someone who is not subject to anger) about the Mistress who rattled the Puritan community and distressed the Fathers of the Colony. None of the male ministers had anything in common with the Jesus of the New Testament.

Anne Hutchinson heartily made her displeasure known with the fools she suffered. This was especially the situation with witless John Wilson and his rogue interpretation of religion “of one of works”. Having enough of his prattle praising tithing that was barely substantiated within scripture, Mistress Hutchinson got up and left whenever the millstone minister rose to pray or preach parched words of damnation and demons. Tithing, actually, refers to a bribe (Deuteronomy 12:5-11):, extortion (Numbers 28:20-32), or payment under duress or to obtain spoils of war and theft (Genesis 14:20, 28:20-22) or a forced bribe to keep god from destroying his people (Malachi 3:8-10).

Repeatedly, Goodwife Hutchinson was reprimanded to mind the ministry of men. She was to “silence herself” as being less than a man in the eyes of a critical, cruel and wrathful god.

Expelled by the “men of god” who declared End Times was “neigh [near]” and an apocalyptic war was about to begin with Jesus (defying the law of gravity) would ride out on a horse from the clouds with sword in hand to take blood from non-believers (Matthew 10:34), Hutchinson was exiled from her original home and community. With many of her supporters, Hutchinson established the settlement of Portsmouth (that would become the Colony of Rhode Island) and Providence Plantations. There was no rest for the outspoken Hutchinson. As at Plymouth, so it was at Portsmouth. Hutchinson’s heroic stand for her opinions and interpretations were met with scorn. The chauvinistic chorus of misanthropic ministers damned her, “for she is but a woman” enfeebling every effort at blind justice and direct democracy.

A feisty firebrand who insisted on faith and with no emphasis on good works, Hutchinson ultimately found a home on the ancient landmark called Split Rock in what later became The Bronx in New York City. Her aspiration to help others, including the original aboriginal population (who became known as Indians), the city fathers launched acidic arguments against her, and leagued with “forces unknown.” In August 1643, Hutchinson and all but one of the 16 members of her household were massacred during an attack by the native Siwanoy. Her 9-year-old daughter Susanna was taken captive.

The travail threaded through the life of Hutchison gave a tortured birth of a hatred-inspired fear of women throughout most of New England. It spilled its poison into other colonies with a speed unmatched since the imaginary war in heaven between the Advocate of Job 2:1 (a Babylonian tale) known as Satan, and the mythical Akkadian god incorporated into the Bible under the name of Michael. Religious rites were galvanized, ministers obtained a near god-like authority. Religious freedom was curtailed, and colonies settled by one group of religionists were forced out by other religionists determined to draft their own ideologies into their charters, as happened to Maryland.

18th century caricature of Pope on Guy Fawkes Night in Boston

Maryland was established as a colony for Roman Catholics by Lord George Calvert in 1625. Roman Catholics were quickly disenfranchised as being “papists” and too attached to the plutocracy of the Vatican and the demands of the papacy. “Good Christians” [Protestants] of Maryland, exploded intemperate against Roman Catholic priests who were rejected as following a foreign potentate determined to turn the New World colonies into vassal states of the Vatican. According to broadsheets, the Pope was to rule over splintered states by bishops loyal only to the Vicar of Christ. This Vicar was caricaturized as a diabolical demons surrounded by vipers who would grow fat on the food denied the poor.

Roman Catholics in Maryland quickly lost their freedom of religion. They were disenfranchised in 1646. They were, however, allowed along with “all [other] Christians” (emphasis mine) to live and work in Maryland in 1649 by means of the Maryland Toleration Act.

The Maryland Act of Toleration (1649)

The Maryland Toleration Act became the source for the First Amendment of the fledgling United States of America. It was never, originally, a popular document nor a well-received First Amendment.

Virginia’s House of Burgesses recognized the Church of England as the official religion of the colony in 1619. The tie to the Established Church in England was, however, weak, and Anglicans in Virginia frequently pursued a course different from their counterparts in London.

In 1775, the bishop of London (Richard Terrick, 1710 – 1777) appointed James Blair to represent his interests in the colony, but there was scant attention to the authority from London in matters of religion, except that all prayer books and services followed the Church of England style that were far more closely related to the doctrines of Martin Luther than those of John Calvin.

The German, a former Augustinian monk who wrote numerous tracts in defence of the papacy and Rome, Martin Luther became over time contemptuous of Jews (whom initially he had written in defense of) and argued for a strict interpretation of the words of the Bible with little to no tolerance for apostasy or heresy. Jews were not welcome anywhere in the New World when the colonies were formed. They were slandered as being slayers of “the Christ”–a title Jesus never used in the original New Testament.

New Amsterdam (1626 engraving)

Little is known about the first Jew to visit the colonies. The “sons of Israel” were poorly tolerated in colonial America (cf. Warren Blumenfeld (2012), “On The Discursive Construction of Jewish “Racialization” And “Race Passing”: Jews As “U-boats” With A Mysterious ‘Queer Light'”, Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 1-28). Jews were accepted only if they could bring supplies to the colonies, as was the case with the second Jew who sailed to the New World: Solomon Franco.

Jews in Colonial America (17th century drawing)

Solomon Franco was a Sephardic Jew from Holland. There is scant record of this enterprising man, except it is believed that he settled in the city of Boston in 1649.

Franco delivered “needed” supplies to Edward Gibbons, a Major General in the Massachusetts militia. Franco quickly wore out his welcome when he demanded payment.

Gibbons was astonished that anyone would expect payment from a man of his rank–especially a Jew. A dispute broke out over who should pay Franco (Gibbons or Perada a Dutch merchant who arranged for the shipment of goods). On May 6, 1649, the Massachusetts General Court that Franco was to be expelled from the colony, but granted Franco “six shillings per week out of the Treasury for ten weeks, for sustenance, till he can get his passage to Holland”. The “sustenance allowance quickly ran out.

Jews found a home in New York (August 1654 drawing)

Five years later Solomon Pietersen, a merchant from Amsterdam, sailed into Boston. In 1656, Pietersen became the first known Americanized Jew to intermarry with a Christian. This action was deemed scandalous, being tantamount to “race mixing” that was illegal. Pietersen’s marriage to a Christian woman (referred even then to miscegenation, coming from the Latin miscere “to mix” + genus “kind”) is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation. The same bigotry that has been the lot of LGBT people by such biblical illiterates as Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa, Timothy Dolan of New York, Francis George of Chicago, Bryan Fischer, Ann Coulter and the ever-ignorant Benedict XVI (who declared he would resign as pope on February 28–an action that has not occurred since 1415 in the Middle Ages).

Those who spew hatred against marginalized groups painfully mistranslated and misinterpreted the universal myth of Ham {Greek Χαμ, Kham ; Arabic: حام, Ḥām, “hot” or “burnt”} in reference to skin pigmentation: Black for Africans, “dark brown” for Jews and “Arabs” {the Semitic or Abrahamic people of Mesopotamia Africa}, and so forth; Genesis 9:20-27), “force” Ham’s later generations, according to some records, to formally convert to Christianity. To this end Black slaves in Virginia and other states demanded that their slaves go to Christian churches, and if they went with their white masters, to sit either on benches in balconies or in near-by cabins (some were allowed to sit at the back of the church if it did not have a full congregation).

There are no records showing Pietersen formally converted. His daughter Anna, however, was baptized in childhood. The action was one of the forced/enforced requirements of that day to stay in the colony.

Jacob Barsimson arrives at New Amsterdam (1654)

The third Jew to arrive at New Amsterdam (lower Manhattan, where Wall Street is today) was Jacob Barsimson. Barsimson was born in Holland and worked for the Dutch East India Company. He was among the refugees who was aboard the Peartree on August 22, 1654, fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition when Portugal conquered Batavia (Jakarta).

Around this time 23 more Jews (four couples, two widows, and thirteen children) arrived as refugees from Brasil (that had been a Dutch colony before it was conquered by the Portuguese. The refugees’ spokesperson was Asser Levy, primarily because he represented the legendary priestly class of the ancient Hebrews. Levy argued for Jewish rights in the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam. Levy won for the Jews basic civil rights including admission into the House of Burghers and was also granted the privilege of serving guard duty for the colony–something no non-Christian was allowed to do, so great was the colonists fear of angering their god of wrath. Levy’s victory was not without a fight.

The Christians of the local Dutch Reformed Church, led by local merchants, appealed to the colonial governor, Peter Stuyvesant, to have the Jews expelled, on the grounds, as Stuyvesant wrote to the Dutch West India Company (September 22, 1654), that the Jews practiced usury and were “deceitful trading with the Christians … [praying] that the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ—ne [be] not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony to the detraction of your worships and the dissatisfaction of your worships’ most affectionate subjects”.

Peter Stuyvesant in New Amsterdam (New York)

The Dutch West India Company declined because of several influential Jews in New Amsterdam who promised to provide “the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation”. To the consternation of “good Christians” in New Amsterdam, the Dutch West India Company went further:

“We would have liked to effectuate and fulfill your wishes and request that the new territories should no more be allowed to be infected by people of the Jewish nation, for we foresee therefrom the same difficulties which you fear, but after having further weighed and considered the matter, we observe that this would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by this nation, with others, in the taking of Brazil, as also because of the large amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company. Therefore after many deliberations we have finally decided and resolved to apostille [annotate] upon a certain petition presented by said Portuguese Jews that these people may travel and trade to and in New Netherland and live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation. You will now govern yourself accordingly.”

After New Amsterdam fell to the British, in 1737, the General Assembly, of what was renamed New York, voted that no Jew was to be allowed to vote for members of that body. Disenfranchised the Jews spent most of their time in business pursuits.

Few Jews moved beyond New York City. There were not sufficient Jews in Upstate New York to form a congregation until 1838, and there were no rabbis to serve until 1846.

There was no recognized Jewish community or congregation in Boston before 1840, and while an occasional Jew made it into Vermont and New Hampshire, there were no congregations until 1882. While there were a few Jews in Massachusetts, there was no significant record of any Jew or of any Jewish congregation before 1800. Even fewer lived in Maryland.

Covenant of Peace (first Jewish synagogue at Eaton, PA) 1839

Pennsylvania had its first Jewish emigrant, Joseph Simon, in 1730, but there was no synagogue or cemetery for Jews until 1732 at Shaefferstown. A synagogue was established at Easton in 1839, but its rabbi was not welcomed by any Christian pastor or congregant.

Pennsylvania was carved out for Quakers. While the Quakers were far more tolerant than any other Christian in Colonial America, they were to the far left of the Church of England that was too “popery”. Quakers’ aversion to war, violence, and argument made them as distrusted as were the animosities between chrestianos and christianos until the Emperor Constantine I created his crated “catholic [universal] church” in 325 CE (Eusebius, Vita Constantini 36-37, in Greek) by decree with no reference to Matthew 16:18. There is no biblical proof that Jesus ever anointed a pope nor called for worship centers beyond an empty field (Matthew 18:20) or prayer in secret (Matthew 6:6). There was never, to this day, a person in the USA who ever followed the teaching of Jesus, those who claim to be Christians are Paulinists, with Roman Catholics in the USA fleeing the teaching of Jesus more than any group.

Roman Catholicism, having been suppressed in the past (Jenkins, Philip (1 April 2003). The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. Oxford University Press. p. 23) throughout the seaboard colonies continued to be feared as being covert workers for a Catholic invasion and take-over orchestrated by the Pope in the Vatican.

KKK armed to defend the USA from an invasion by Rome and its Catholic priests (19th century)

Americans, both colonialists and those who came with and after the Revolution, continued to arm themselves against alleged invasion of Roman Catholic Spaniards from Florida, Mexico, Cuba, and other Latin American nations. Fear of Roman Catholics further spurred the KKK to arm themselves, seek out Roman Catholics and execute them. They were supported by legislators and laws in such hate-filled states as Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Georgia, Texas and the rest of the southern tier. Governors, Congressional representatives and senators, and state legislatures from West Virginia to California, Texas to Minnesota turned a blind eye to the carnage of many Christians who declared, like Billy Graham, Richard Land, G.Em Melchert and James Dobson, that Roman Catholics were not Christians. The anger that rang from the roof tops of Nazareth Lutheran Church and College Hill Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa, was matched in embittered denunciations by the cult of the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod, the Southern Baptist Convention and its Christ for the Nations ministry, buttressed by Pentecostal predators from Jimmy Bakker to Jimmy Swaggart, Scott Lively to James Dobson, with the support of born-again governors from Rick Perry (R-TX) and Scott Walker (R-WI).

Second Amendment to Constitution of the USA.

Many of the most hate-filled people, from legislators in Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas, found solace only in the Second Amendment that they believed was their buttress for maintaining guns and other weapons, even though the Amendment said it was to sustain “a militia”. The people have a right to “keep and bear arms” but for defense. Previously arms had been housed in community arsenals at public expense.

Irish Catholics, Jews and Blacks were considered equally evil by White “saved” Christians leading to establishing the KKK.

Blacks and Irish Catholics were considered evil, worthless and expendable in early USA history. Irish and Black people were frequently drawn as being equal, with the Irish lampooned as being ape-like.

Cartoons and caricatures depicting the Pope as “the Great Whore” and priests as cutthroats and worse spread from broadsheets to newspapers and books. With the rise of the Khristian Knights of the [KKK] Klan, attacks on Roman Catholics increased along with the slaughter of Blacks and other minorities.

Even the otherwise well-read democrat and orator for human rights and civil liberties for all, Thomas Jefferson, wrote against Roman Catholicism. Jefferson argued: “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government,” (Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813) and that “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own” (Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814).

“American Patriot” Anti-Catholic articles attacking Pope and End Times theology

By the 1840s the nightmare fantasy fable of End of Times and the invention of a physical hell spawned by ancient Mesopotamian civilizations and plagiarized by most Abrahamic religions and people throughout the Middle East, was directly linked to the influx of Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics were viewed as being more intent on damnation than on salvation even for the most avid Puritans. More and more the papacy was labeled the Whore of Babylon (Dante, Inferno Canto 19, drawn from the ranting of John “of Patmos” (an island where those who were determined

to be insane were housed, with the writer of Revelation being consider “quite mad” even by his coreligionists who thought him suicidal or prone to murder) in Apocalypse 13 and 17:1-2. Both the Apocalypse and other renderings of End Time theology were, plagiarized from old Babylonian tales and Akkadian folklore interwoven into Egyptian records. The verses in Apocalypse 13, 17:1-2 are closely identified with the tale found in the Babylonian Book of Daniel 5, 9:27). This lead to the indiscriminate slaughter of Roman Catholics and the burning of their property 1840-1872 (Jimmy Akin (2001-03-01). “The History of Anti-Catholicism”. This Rock. Catholic Answers). No newspaper, no periodical, no Christian minister raised his voice against this attack on civil rights and human liberties.

Benedict XVI (resigned papacy February 18, 2013)

Today’s Roman Catholic Church in the USA. the religion most repressed in early America, is the most oppressive religion within the nation–and within the world. The Roman Catholic Church continues to deny women the right of choice and the right to be priest–a role women held in the early communities and in the congregations set up by Apostles of Jesus of the New Testament. The Roman Catholic Church, especially with the ascent of the two most hate-filled pontiffs in modern history, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, rejects basic human rights for various groups from non-Christians (there has been token efforts to dialogue with Buddhists and Jews, but nothing on the scale of John XXIII who reached out to everyone) to LGBT and other marginalized people. The Roman Catholic Church under John Paul II and his rottweiler cardinal from Germany, Joseph Ratzinger, made a concerted but secretive effort to protect pedophile priests and prelates from Roger Mahoney (Los Angeles) and Timothy Dolan (New York City read hereand here and here) intones, in the ”name of Jesus Christ”. The German Pope, Benedict XVI, is chief of those who are opposed to the Constitution of the USA’s proclamation of all people being equal and afforded equality before the law. At the same time, the pontifex maximus continued protecting pedophile priests from the Jesuits in Alaska who sexually assaulted little girls and boys under the age of 12 in tribal villages and in remote areas to secular priests in the Oregon, Iowa, Texas and throughout the USA dioceses and abroad.

Ashlynn Conner, a little Irish American girl, bullied into suicide at age 10 in Illinois

While Colonial charters and laws contained specific proscriptions against Roman Catholics by state constitutions, atheists are openly attacked in the same way and with an identical fury as the early Roman Catholics and Jews. Atheists, however, are attacked more frequently than either of the groups of oppressed people. Students in USA schools and universities bullying are among the rising number of self-define “soldiers of Christ” who feel “called upon” to attack atheists. These “soldiers of Christ” are sworn to rid the USA of atheists, either by murdering them in cold blood or by “encouraging those who doubt or deny god” to commit suicide by channeling their hate on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other means of social communication. This vitriol is even more acute in the “soldiers of Christ” in attacking any LGBT who is either self-acknowledge and proud of himself or herself, regardless of age. Even young children are singled out for torment that can lead to suicide, as was the case with ten-year-old Ashlynn Conner, to 15-year-old Jamie Hubley, and more.

The majority of the tormentors being parents, siblings, classmates, evangelical groups. Most of the groups are certified hate organizations, such as Focus on the Family (Alabama), and Bob Vander Plaats’ The FAMiLY that leads the charge against women’s rights in Iowa. Vander Plaats is sustained by the collective insanity by nine nightmare clinically insane Republican Representatives strangling democracy in the Iowa legislature (House File 153) who seek to enact legislation that would declare sperm, ova, zygote, and fetus a “person” and its “destruction” murder–a tactic used in many other states to deny women personal freedom.

If this barbaric broadside would past, the Tea Party Republicans would many any woman who was raped stand trial for first degree murder). This is especially true in carnivorous cults of the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod, Missouri Lutheran church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the Roman Catholic Church and the US Council of Roman Catholic Bishops (read here and here). It is acceptable to abuse a child in any of these cults (my uncles sodomized me when I was younger than eight, and one was a minister in the Missouri Lutheran Church, and the other a student of theology, not yet ordained; when I complained first to my mother (who was convinced I had seduced my uncles) and to my pastor (who argued that I was the sinner), I gave up all interest and faith in religion.

Charles Darwin on atheism

Atheists cannot hold public office in Arkansas (Article 19, Section 1), Maryland (Article 37), Mississippi (Article 14, Section 265), North Carolina (Article 6, Section 8), Pennsylvania (Article 1, Section 4, while the wording is tricky, the message that those who differ in their interpretation and belief in a god cannot be disqualified), South Carolina (Article 17, Section 4), Tennessee (Article 9, Section 2), Texas (Article 1, Section 4)—while the 14th Amendment, Section 6 technically makes it moot, the states that discriminate reject that amendment, and several contenders for the presidency of the USA have campaigned to have the Amendment overturned.

Atheism in San Diego, California (2013)

Atheists have only limited rights. Atheists and those who do not attend churches, synagogues or private meeting houses (Quakers, Unitarian-Universalists, etc), are openly attacked from Virginia to California, Minnesota to Texas and throughout all other states.

A federal court in Indiana dismissed a claim that an Indiana law prohibiting secular celebrants from solemnizing marriages (Indiana code 31-11-6-1). At the same time the Christian court allowed religious representatives to perform marriages in open violation the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the USA. The federal court in Indiana rejected a brief submitted by the Center for Inquiry in Center for Inquiry, Inc., et al. v Clerk, Marion Circuit Court, et al (read here, pdf). It is an overt, court consciously calculated double standard extensively covered in numerous legal cases.

Humanist ads are not attack advertising.

Humanists enjoy life. They seek out the better in themselves and other people. They do not attack. Humanists teach that all things are open to questioning and debate.

To silence debate is the mark of religion that offers no freedom to the individual. Debate silenced is nothing less than mental, and physical slavery. Socrates was the thinker who best represented humanism: questioning everything, working to change that which could be changed, and accepting fate for what was in store by being a model citizen, an educated teacher, an analytic debater, and a good spouse who made sure all debts were paid:

Aesculapius, Greek God of Medicine and Healing with serpent (Wisdom) on staff, and cock (health and ease of death) on pedestal.

It was recorded by Plato that Socrates said: “Crito, we owe a rooster (in the original, the word is cock: a male gallinaceous bird: a chicken, turkey, grouse, pheasant, and partridge, grouse, etc., while a rooster is a domestic fowl: a male chicken with no superior powers. The god of health was partial to cocks because of their curative powers and use in ritual worship) to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.” Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and for Socrates the greatest cure for illness is death. ( Plato, Phaedo 115b-118a; cp. Waterfield,Robin (2009). Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths. New York:W.W.Norton and Company). Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety (“not believing in the gods of the state”), cf. Plato. Apology, 24–27.

Religion is like genitalia: don’t show it off in public or shove it down your children’s throat

Distrust in oneself and in those who admit/claim to be atheists is a prime reason for seasoned social ostracization of atheists and atheism. Several psychological studies show that results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them: if you are not a believer you will suffer the pains and fires of hell. Other studies show atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, but not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains (Gervais, Will M.; Shariff, Azim F.; Norenzayan, Ara (December 2011). “Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice”. doi: 10.1037/a0025882 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 101(6), 1189-1206).

Many people argue that atheists and nonbelievers are expressing hidden anger against a god that/who offended them or did not give them what they asked for (Exline, Julie J.; Park, Crystal L.; Smyth, Joshua M.; Carey, Michael P (January 2011). “Anger toward God: Social-cognitive predictors, prevalence, and links with adjustment to bereavement and cancer”. doi: 10.1037/a0021716 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 100(1), 129-148). This has been repeatedly been disproven, with research on why many elect atheism, being a study of 350 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. Those who vouched that they had no belief in a god had a wide reading of history , science and religion (75 times) that grew throughout their lifetime; disgust with religious hypocrisy (60) as seen in the case of Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, Bishop Eddie Long

Bishop Eddie Long’s boy friends

(whose victims Bishop Eddie Long’s boy friends call him a “monster” as the bishop had no less than four boy-toys, while Long claims the charges are false and he was the victim); influence of particular author or book (55); a byproduct of Socialist materialism (30); effects of college education (25); effects of study of sciences (25); and others in lesser numbers. Less frequently emotional factors were mentioned, such as: illness and death in family, the horrors of war, the futility of prayer, the evils and unhappiness in the world, etc. 36% of the atheists were oldest children, while only 15% were youngest children; about 9% were only children (Vetter, G. B.; Green, M. (July 1932). “Personality and group factors in the making of atheists”. doi: 10.1037/h0075273 The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol 27(2), 179-194).

Most people who reject god do so after intensive study of history, science, religion, and philosophy: atheists tend to be more educated and broadly versed than do theists (Teo, Thomas (2009), Editorial. doi: 10.1037/ a0017640 Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Vol 29(2), 61-62). Families do disassociate themselves from members who declare their rejection of any god(s) that the family may believe in and worship, but this is a sign of paternalism and the fear of the family unit not being carried on by future like-minded generations.

States that the deny atheists and agnostics basic human and civil rights

By 2013, there is only an abridged form of religious freedom with many states within the union, with many states disenfranchising or denying the right to serve in a public office if the individual does not recognize a god. Even the deity is questioned as it was in the past: Jesus has to be Caucasian white, the name of the creator has to be God (not Allah), and so forth. The act of swearing an oath is said to have religious connotations as it affirms the existence of a deity and a person’s confession of the existence of a deity, but this has no biblical support. On the contrary, the Bible expressly forbids people to swear (Matthew 5:34, James 5:12), therefore to swear “So help me god” is actually biblically prohibited since it is a rejection of YHWH and Jesus and an affirmation of a pagan god.

A Christian pastor does not mean that it is a man or a woman in a suit pounding pulpits as if he or she was/is the Wrath of Moses. A Christian preacher is not a man in a red dress covered with delicate lace sitting enthroned in a cathedral.

Christianity from its beginning in 325 CE meant a dictatorship over a group of semi-thinking people. We find this in the pontifications of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the US Council of Roman Catholic Bishop and similar church councils around the world, as well as in the proclamations of various cults from those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostal group, Ultra Orthodox Jews, and in the estranged world of mind control of Bob Vander Plaats’ The FAMiLY in Iowa, or James Dobson’s American Family Association in Alabama, or other certified hate groups. The teachings of Jesus of the New Testament is not Constantine’s Christianity that details that select individuals have the right to deny other people personal rights, liberties or freedoms, and have the power to require others to believe or disbelieve as predator (priest, pastor, bishop, cardinal, pope, imam, ayatollah, rabbi, and so forth) demands. That is slavery.

Various evangelical groups reject non-evangelical groups with their own interpretation of holy books and leaders. These groups ranged from chrestianos to christianos, concerning the warrior messiah of Matthew 10:34 to the prince of peace in Isaiah 9:6. The two were joined by Constantine who controlled the ultimate canonization of scripture. For this reason, it can truly be written, that Christianity is among the most barbaric of religions and has been since it was created by the Emperor Constantine I for religion (the Church) claims superiority over the state throughout history, even within the USA where politicians ranging from US Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA), to Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and former (now Governor) Sam Brownback (R-KS, converted to Roman Catholicism by Opus Dei priest Rev. John McCloskey’s guidance) all reject a wall separating state and church.

The Roman Emperor at the time of the assaults on Rome and the City of Constantine, Constantine I created an ecclesia (ἐκκλησίαa: public court, political assembly of citizens of an ancient Greek state [American Heritage Dictionary] who had the obligation to do business and bring wealth to the emperor) where only his interpretation of Paulinity would be held and upheld, and the actual teaching of Jesus would be watered down, and his private life ignored. There was no placed in the early Church for a renegade man who never had a girl friend, who never married, who never took up arms to defend the empire, who allowed a man to rest his head upon Jesus’ chest, who was followed out of the garden by a nude youth, and most likely was gay, since Jewish society all males to marry and procreate–which Jesus never did–save in one Coptic fragment. The problemwith the ancient fragment is it is too late to consult with other similar fragments that have disintegrated with time or were consigned to the first of Constantine who was busy working on creating his own church.

Coptic fragment referring to Jesus wife (or partner?)

The Pauline church was Constantine’s make-believe early “church” in opposition to the brothers of Jesus who saw the movement as a reformed Judaism. Determined to be the sole arbiter of thought and expression, Constantine’s church would be a national unit that would allow Constantine absolute control over the empire’s faiths.

The Emperor Constantine I orders books burned including gospels considered equal to the synoptic gospels and letters he did not like 325 CE

Constantine burned all books, scrolls, records, gospels, epistles that he did not approve–a common practice especially when it comes to religion and its denial of individual freedoms and human rights. Constantine’s church [business enterprise] was not known as Christianity after the theological coup. To ensure imperial control over the newly created church, Constantine ordered the works of Arius and other “heretics” were burned, in the manner of the Coptic pope in Egypt demanding that the famed library of Alexandria be destroyed.

Hypatia killed by Christians in Alexandria, Egypt on order of the Coptic Pope

It was under the clerical Catholic cannibalism of the pseudo-Christian Coptic Pope Cyril that the famed astronomer, philosopher, mathematician, scientist, librarian and atheist Hypatia was torn apart by Coptic Christian monks who shredded her skin, tearing it off while she lived, and throwing her living body onto a pyre of burning scrolls and writings of ancient thinkers in all then-known fields of academic inquiry. The death of Hypatia was planned by the Coptic monks and set a signal for all bibliolators in the conservative Christian community to rise up against the ‘learned scholars’ of Alexandria, a center of knowledge throughout the ancient world and destroy all things that were not of, from, and within the Bible. It was the beginning of the Dark Ages in Egypt that spread like a fungus throughout Europe, turning off all lights that pierced the darkness of biblical literalism and enforced belief (George F. Simmons (1992). Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics. New York, NY: MacGraw Hill; Maria Dzielska (1995). Hypatia of Alexandria, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, (Revealing Antiquity, 8), p. xi, 157).

With the message of the mythical Paul cannibalizing Christianity, the law body (the actual meaning of the word in the early centuries, first to fourth, ecclesia, changed by the fifth century when courtiers transmogrified the true meaning of the word by attaching to it the incorrect translation and title of “the Church”) gave the world the grotesque Inquisition. The bloody Inquisition did not remain uniquely Roman Catholic. It quickly was taken up by such “reformers” as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Henry VIII and his heirs, Scandinavian potentates, and the most vile representatives of man in Russia and captive provinces. All based their “reformations” on spurious tracts that were current but did not reflect original documents designed to ensure peace or protect people. Few men, after the second century CE, realized that there never was a St. Peter, St. Paul, or Roman Popes (the first does not appear or is catalogued before the second century, not even in the first edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia, with some writers arguing that there were no bishops nor a pope in Rome before the end of the fourth century).

Luther, Martin: Von den Jüden und ihren lügen Wittemberg (1543)

The protesting reformer, Martin Luther’s war against the Jews and his books (Von den Jüden und iren Lügen, 1543, that the German ex-Augustinian monk wrote: Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within, and not of man working — or rather playing — from without. If these offences be taken away, worse will follow. For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that they may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather than better by correction; cf. Oberman, Heiko. Luthers Werke. Erlangen 1854, 32:282, 298, in Grisar, Hartmann. Luther. St. Louis 1915, 4:286 and 5:406; cp. Luther, Martin. Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi) that became the supporting arguments for Hitler’s extermination of the Jews.

These same arguments sprung up like weeds in the mincing of the madman Richard Land and the Southern Baptist Conventions to use them against the LGBT community. Like slurry it has resurfaced among poorly trained Pentecostal preachers who are personally against Muslims, etc. There is even the absurdity of the “reverend” Terry Jones of Florida who damns everything Islamic, like Fred Phelps and his cult the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS, that even his own granddaughters fled.

When a person is in another nation, the visitor must respect or at least obey the laws of that nation. The visitor has no right to enforce on others his or her own views or theologies. This happens too frequently as with the carnage called for by Scott Lively and his gaggle of evangelical goons, flying to Africa to initiate genocide. Scott Lively, Lou Engle, Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Don Schmierer met at the infamous C Street, Washington, DC “The Family” house that shelters US Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA), James Inhofe (R-OK), John Stennis (R-MS), Richard Lugar (R-IN), adulterers Mark Sanford (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV) and numerous other dominionists, including Rev. Ted Haggard whose seduction and payment for homosexual prostitute to keep him “company” was forgiven “in the name of Jesus Christ”: USA leaders who want to throw over democrcy in the USA and establish a theocracy where they would awaken a sleeping Jesus to take up sword for the New Apostolic Reformation and ride a stead from the clouds to Earth and launch an Apocalyptic war (Sharlet, Jeff (2010). C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. New York: Little Brown; Sharlet, Jeff (2008). The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. New York, NY: Harper Perennial). Grassley of Iowa is the least well known–but the most dangerous member of The Family who planned to put his grandson in the Iowa legislature but intends for the youth to take over the USA.

Lively, primarily, is sponsoring the death call to elevate his own desperation to be seen as a pivotal evangelist in the USA and is desperately deceiving members of Parliament in Nigeria and Uganda for personal gain and fame.

Lively is funneling money into the pockets of Speakers of Parliament to launch an unholy war against minorities. He has the support with the great racist Benedict XVI who publicly blessed Uganda Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga when she promised a “cleanings” of all LGBT from Uganda by December 25, 2012. Repeating the words of her hero, Adolf Hitler, Kadaga promised that a “final solution” would be Uganda Parliament’s Christmas present for “good Christians”.

Roman Catholics of Uganda, led by the Roman Catholic episcopacy: its bishops and clergy (most who are admitted pedophiles) demanded the legislation to pass quickly so that they could help the nation murder all LGBT who threatened the children of the nation. Ugandan Roman Catholics and Anglicans also demanded the slaughter of all Jews and others who do not agree with them, claiming that they had the support of Benedict XVI. Most were furious when they learned that their beloved pope was already named as a subject for trial for crimes against humanity. They protested when “liberal” factions claimed that no evangelist has a right to enter any nation and “convert” others to their insanity, and that a holy war must break out between Christians of Uganda and Muslims in Uganda.

George Carlin on god

What maintains religious officiates is the absurdity of tithing. The “tithe” was an ancient law to appease a jealous king who was also considered a god (Genesis 14:20) and came from the “spoils” [theft] of wars. Tithing became a special bribe mortals made to kings/gods (Genesis 28:20-22) and became a part of “the Laws of Moses”. The Ten Commandments, of which there are three distinct sets in Exodus, were plagiarized from the Code of Hammurabi and other ancient Middle Eastern texts with the arrival of the Egyptian mercenaries known as Apiru (prototypes of the Hebrews) who served in the Akkadian army (Leviticus 27:30-32). The Apiru leaders declared that tithes would be the main support of temple priests (reclassified as Levites in Numbers 18:20-32) whose primary duty after appeasing a cannibal god was to guard the warriors’ wealth (Nehemiah 13:4-12).

There is nothing spiritual about tithing, as throughout the Middle East it was extortion money paid to the most unscrupulous elements of society. TIPS, however, were medieval in origin and meant To Insure Prompt Service that were given out by lords and clergy to get immediate service–it was never a wage paid at the end of a meal, nor required, but, like in the bible, was a bribe. Only through TIPS and bribes can there be freedom of religion for the few who conform the most to the dictates of the wealthy and those in power.

3 responses to “Freedom of Religion: Fact and Fantasy”

An excellent, well-researched article! Much of this information was new to me. I thought that the U.S. followed the “there can be no religious test for office” rule, but that’s obviously wrong. As usual, I’ve learned more by reading one of your articles than I did in years of school. Well done!

Great material! I jumped here from your comment on Inside Higher Ed’s “Snapshot Dissertation” article. I agree that the whole argument contained in a dissertation is probably not easily reduced to an elevator pitch. But your narrative here offers a counterexample. Generally, people don’t know that atheists are disqualified in the ways you described. They also don’t know that freethinkers played a significant role in American history, often pushing with partial success for radical social changes from the “outside” while incrementalists on the “inside” got the credit, both in their own time and in the history books. If I only write about this in my dissertation, it will continue to be unknown. So I’m writing a popular biography of a freethinker.

Atheists, agnostics, free-thinkers, humanists and those who do not recognize a supernatural power or being have played a significant role in the evolution of society and mortal history since its first record. Most of these nonbelievers were muted with fear of ostracization or even death, but like Cicero and other classicists, they publicly worshipped, sacrificed, and avowed their belief in the god(s) of the day, but in private writing and transcribed conversations they would boldly state: “In public I believe in all gods, but in privacy I reject all–and if enough men [mortals] reject the deities created by men [sic], all the gods will vanish in the fumes and smoke from which they originated.” This we can see in the papyrus’ attributed to Akhenaton who attempted to end the pantheon in ancient Egypt, to the responses of various Greeks and later Romans. Consider http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=froCSGlyG0g, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKt9EgENzGI, and for Einstein’s original letter on “god” with a serious explanation of the letter and how it has been marginally interpreted and in major areas poorly translated at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSU69RbY7kg. Einstein stated that “the Jewish religion” was “an ancient idea” that lacked scientific reality. Einstein states that the Jews were nothing special–any more than any other “men” [sic]. It should be noted that early Jews to the eastern seaboard colonies were quite concerned as how they were seen: the myth that they were the “killers of Jesus”–which no Jew committed.